


Healing

by team_magi



Series: Commissions [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Hurt and comfort, PLATONIC ONLY - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 01:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14966378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/team_magi/pseuds/team_magi
Summary: Cole and Inquisitor Lavellan help Connor deal with his inner demons.





	Healing

**Author's Note:**

> This is a commission for connorguerrin, at 1,000 words.

I actually have a lot of personal feelings about Connor (specifically how his appearance in Inquisition wasn’t used to frame how the Chantry only cares about noble mage children that they can use or that possession is completely reversible and the Chantry doesn’t want anyone to know that and instead Connor was used to say how “dangerous” mages are). BUT rant aside, this is a commission for connorguerrin, at 1,000 words.

Fandom: Dragon Age

Friendship: platonic Connor/Cole/Inquisitor 

Connor’s life had never been easy. It should have been; he was an arl’s son, the heir to Redcliffe. It should’ve meant a life of privilege, prestige, noblewomen, all the benefits of being nobility. But his magic had come and cut it all done. When magic entered his life so had the apostate Jowan, who poisoned his father, and then the real nightmare began. His possession, and ended up sending the living dead onto his own people, and adding their bodies to his army. If it wasn’t for the Hero of Ferelden, who knows how far and how long it would’ve lasted. 

And then the Hero had saved him personally; went to the Circle, got the lyrium and the mages, and actually managed to cure him of possession, with no more blood being spilled. But while it saved his life, it didn’t help much else.

Connor still had nightmares; almost every night, with the occasional lapse that brought a brief respite from waking up screaming, his head filled with walking corpses and his ears ringing with cries of agony. None of the healers in the Circle had been able to help with that.

Things had changed once the rebellion began; the templars were coming to kill them, regardless of whether or not any of them actually wanted to rebel. So Connor and all of the other mages had been forced to get up, leave, learn combat, and how to function in the normal world, with Connor teaching a lot of his fellows things like bartering and socializing; thanks to his mother’s training, he at least had that.

Then came the Conclave, and the Breach, and they had all holed up in his hometown, and being back in Redcliffe hadn’t been any help Connor. Then Inquisitor Lavellan had recruited the rebel mages, and saved them all from Alexius. She had picked him out personally; she seemed very attentive, and her face scrunched up when he mentioned the Circles. She was Dalish; the Circle of Magi was foreign to them. But she must have heard of the Blight and everything that occurred during it, including Redcliffe. There was no way Leliana didn’t mention it. 

And having the Inquisitor’s attention also meant getting some from the Inquisitor’s Inner Circle; he would often find Cassandra glaring at him from a distance, and Solas was not like any apostate he’d ever heard of. Vivienne seem to regard him with both pity and as a cautionary tale. 

And of course, there was also Cole. 

Cole’s presence was...unnerving, at first. He was silent, and seem to shift straight out of the shadows when he appeared, making not a sound. Someone could simply turn around, and he would be there.

And then there was the oddities about him; giving the cats mint, or hiding daggers for some reason or another. And there was his habit of looking into people’s heads. 

According to the Inquisitor, he was some form of a spirit of compassion. She had this sad look in her eyes when she looked at Cole or thought about him; he’d seen the same at the Circle, all the pitying stares at him for what he had endured at Redcliffe. 

“Waking up in the middle of the night. Darkness all around. Can still smell dead flesh and blood. Hear Teagan’s laugh in my ears. Should sound cheerful, but it isn’t. It all echoes in my head, over and over again.” 

Maker’s breath, that was horrifying. The spirit seemed to have manifested right next to him and just reached into his mind and pulled those thoughts from his head. Almost horrifying as the events that Cole spoke of that occurred a decade ago in Redcliffe.

Nothing seemed to soothe Connor’s mind. Not the passage of time, not the assurances from his fellow mages that the fault wasn’t his. Neither the nightmares nor the guilt had faded. Knowing that if he had just not existed, or just not been a mage, all of those lives would’ve been saved, and Redcliffe wouldn’t have had to repair itself from a civil war and an undead plague. 

“It wasn’t your fault.” Cole said. Yes, that’s what he did. Cole would look into your head, apparently looking for some pain to heal. “You didn’t know. You just wanted to help your father.”

“And we see where that ended up.” Connor snapped. “Me just ‘trying to help my father’ ended up with me possessed, a lot of people dead, and then I got taken to the Circle anyway.”

Connor wasn’t sure how anyone put up with this; the Inquisitor brought Cole out frequently, with his adeptness with daggers and lockpicking, but why him? There was the city elf Sera, or the friend of the Champion of Kirkwall, Varric. But the Inquisitor picked Cole. 

“Your mother was trying to protect you.” 

“And she shouldn’t have!” Connor snapped, his teeth showing. “She was selfish! She just couldn’t bear to lose me, and she did anyway, after costing the whole town so much.” 

Connor looked away for just a second, and when he looked back, Cole was gone. 

“Your mother was right to try to protect you.” 

Connor turned around. “Inquisitor Lavellan?” He turned, and Cole was nowhere to be found, but in his place was the Inquisitor herself.

“I know everything about what happened. Leliana filled me in. She was there, and she doesn’t blame you either. Neither does anyone in Redcliffe.” 

Connor narrowed his eyes. “Please, tell Cole to kindly stay away from me. What would he know about magic or the dangers of it or the Circle?”

“Cole knows the horrors of the Circle, first-hand. The first Cole, the real one, I guess-he was a victim of the templars. They locked in the dungeon of the Spire, and forget him. He starved to death. He understands more than most why a parent could go to such lengths to protect their child from the Circle.” 

Connor’s eyes widened. “I…had no idea.”

Lavellan gently took him by the shoulders. “The only reason the Chantry saved you, when they’ve been preaching that possession is irreversible when that’s clearly not true, is because you’re an arl’s son. That’s the reason they willingly sent a dozen mages and a fortune in lyrium. If you were an elf, or from a poor family, they would’ve cut you down without a second thought.” Inquisitor Lavellan didn’t have a high opinion of the Chantry, or any of its institutions. It was probably because of the Exalted March on the Dalish that took the Dales away from them. Or maybe because Lavellan, despite being Dalish, was made the face of a religion that had effectively tried to stamp out her own. “What happened was driven by fear, what the Chantry tries to instill in everyone. Connor, you can’t blame yourself.” 

Connor swallowed. “I...” 

“You just have to keep telling yourself, ‘it wasn’t my fault.’ Say it with me.” 

Connor took a deep breath. “It wasn’t my fault.” 

“Again.”

“It wasn’t my fault.” 

“One more time.” 

“It wasn’t my fault.” 

The Inquisitor sighed. “I won’t lie, it won’t be overnight.” She said. “It will take a lot of time. And you probably won’t ever fully get over it. But eventually, you’ll be at least okay.” 

Connor took a deep breath. “Thank you, Inquisitor.”

“Please,” She smiled. “Call me Lianna.” 

Connor offered her a small smile in return. “Thank you, Lianna.” 

And perhaps, he should thank Cole too.


End file.
